The Black Train

good stuff here.”

Collier was almost visibly offended by the typical domestic beer taps. I wouldn’t drink that stuff if you had my head in a guillotine…“Uh, actually, I was just passing through—”

“Oh, Buster!” a tinny voice called out from one of the booths. “He doesn’t drink domestic beers! Give him a Heineken. On my tab.”

Collier quailed. “On, no, really, thanks but—”

The green bottle thunked before him. “That’s on Barry over there.”

Collier slumped. His raised the bottle to the guy in the booth—whom he could barely see—and nodded. “Thank you, Barry.” Damn…At least Heineken was a beer snob’s Bud, which could be drunk in a pinch. But Collier didn’t want to drink anymore. “Say,” he addressed the keep, “I’m looking for Jiff Butler. Could’ve sworn I saw him come in here.”

“Oh, that explains it now.” The keep seemed gratified.

“Explains what?”

“Why you’d be coming into a place like this. I got a pretty good eye, you know? I pegged you as straight.”

Collier blinked. “Huh?”

“But how can you be, if you come in here looking for Jiff?” The keep smiled and began polishing some highball glasses.

“Wait a minute, what do you mean?”

“This is a gay bar, and I didn’t make you as gay.”

Collier blinked again, hard. “I didn’t, uh, know this was a gay bar…”

Suddenly the keep’s friendly face turned belligerent. “What? You got a problem with gays?”

Jesus…“Look, man, I’m from California—I don’t care what people’s preferences are. But I’m not gay. I had no idea this was—” All at once, Collier considered the bar’s name, and felt asinine. “Ah. Now I get it.”

The keep looked quizzical. “And you’re here looking for Jiff?”

“Well, yeah. I’m staying at his mother’s inn. I wanted to see if I could borrow his car, but—”

“He’ll be out in a minute…Say, do you know Emeril?”

I sure know how to pick ’em, Collier thought.

He almost knocked his Heineken over when an arm went across his shoulder. A handsome man in a business suit cocked a smile. “You say you need a car, Justin? Wanna borrow my BMW?”

“Uh, uh—no. Thanks—”

A squeeze to the shoulder. “Love your show.” He shot a finger at the keep. “His next one’s on me.”

“Oh, thanks, but—”

“That Ken doll who just bought you the beer is Donny,” the keep told him. “Donny, leave Mr. Collier alone. He’s straight.”

“Oh…”

The man disappeared in murk.

Collier leaned forward and whispered, “Hey, tell me something. If this is a gay bar, why’s that woman sitting over there looking like she wants to get picked up?”

The keep chuckled. “That woman’s name is Mike. I’ll call him over if you want.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, please. No.” Collier’s heart surged. “I was just curious.” He tried to clear his head. “Did I misunderstand you? Did you say Jiff was here?”

“Yeah, he’s in back. He won’t be long.”

“Oh, you mean he works here?”

The keep grinned, revealing a Letterman-type gap between his front teeth. “Sort of. And now that you mention it, he owes me some money…but that’s another story, Mr. Collier.”

This was too weird. I’m sitting in a gay bar drinking mass-market beer, Collier realized. And another thing: Jiff’s obviously gay—why else would he “sort of” work here? No wonder the young man hadn’t been interested in the eye candy at Cusher’s last night. And Sute… Could he maybe be an ex-lover of Jiff’s? Sute had seemed distraught enough, but the rest didn’t add up. Jiff’s young and in good shape, Sute’s old and fat…Collier didn’t care—he just wanted to borrow Jiff’s car. He stood up and looked at his watch—one thirty. Still plenty of time to be ready for his date tonight. “Say, where’s the bathroom?” he asked the keep.

“You’re standing in it!” a voice called from the back booths. Laughter followed.

“Don’t listen to those queens, Mr. Collier.” The keep pointed. “Down that hall, last door on the left.”

Collier smiled uncomfortably when he passed the other booths. Men barely seen in the shadows all greeted him and complimented his show. The hallway was even murkier; he practically had to feel his way down. Did he say last door on the left, or right? Only a tiny yellow makeup bulb lit the entire hall. He saw a door on either side.

Then he heard, or thought he heard, the words: “Get it, come on.”

Collier slowed. That sounded like Jiff…But where was he? In the bathroom?

Dark light glowed in an inch-wide gap at the last door on the right. That’s not the bathroom, is it? There was no sign.

Then he heard: “Yeah…”

A man’s voice but definitely not Jiff’s. Collier peeked in the gap.

He didn’t know what he was seeing at first, just…two shapes in the murk. Only a distant wedge of light lit the room, which looked like a lounge of some kind. There were several ragged-out couches, a table, and some beanbag chairs. The shapes he’d seen were moving.

Jiff’s voice again: “Ya better get it soon, your thirty bucks are runnin’ out.”

Collier’s vision sharpened like a lapse dissolve in reverse. You’ve got to be shitting me!

Jiff was in there, all right, bent over like someone touching their toes. He was also naked. Another man stood behind him, buttocks pumping…

Then, “Yeah…”

The motion slowed, then stopped, and the shadows separated. The other man, exhausted now, gushed, “Thanks, that was great.”

“Glad’ja had a good time,” Jiff’s voice etched from the dark. “So where’s that thirty?”

Collier pulled away and slipped into the bathroom opposite. Now I’ve seen everything. He backed against the bathroom wall, squinting from the sudden change of dim light to bright light. Jiff’s a male prostitute. He turns tricks, and J.G. Sute must be one of his clients. It was an age-old story that worked for gays and straights alike: the Fat Older Man falls in love with the Hot Younger Prostitute—then gets rebuffed. That must be why Sute was nearly in tears during lunch.

The bathroom was more like one in a gas station. Collier relieved himself, then washed his hands, thinking, I guess Jiff’s mother doesn’t pay him enough at the inn. He wasn’t as shocked as he would expect, but suddenly a curdling image assailed him. The scene he’d just witnessed in the little lounge room, only with J.G. Sute as Jiff’s customer…

He waded back through the darkness toward the bar.

“You don’t mind, do you, Mr. Collier?” the keep said, surprising him at the end of the hall.

“Whuh—”

The keep put his arm around his shoulder, then—

“Say cheese!”

snap!

Somebody took a picture of them. The sudden flash left Collier blind.

“Thanks, Mr. Collier,” he heard the keep say. A hand on his arm led him back to his bar stool.

“That’ll look great, framed behind the bar. Our first celebrity!”

Collier could barely see. I better get out of here and sober up before tonight. He